Antebellum mansion
The Antebellum Mansion is the titular location of the original Haunted Mansion. Description Appearance Located in New Orleans Square on Esplenade street, this mansion is built in the antebellum style of architecture which would mean that it was built around the late 18th century or the early 19th century. Through the gateway of the mansion there is a small family cemetery located on a berm above a series of crypts. Closer to the front of the mansion there is a pet cemetery, sundial and white hearse whith no driver or horse. Located at the back of the estate is a large cemetery which can only be accessed via the house itself, or by a flooded mausoleum located outside the mansion's grounds. The mansion also has a garden area filled with statues that serves as an alternate entrance to the grounds. Known Rooms in Mansion: * The Foyer: A Funeral Parlor-Usque room. * The Portrait Gallery: An octagonal room decorated with four portraits of some of the mansion's residents as they appeared in their "corruptible, mortal states". * The Cupola: The Cupola is where the Ghost Host hung himself to death and still holds his rotting skeleton. * The Portrait Corridor: * The Conservatory: * The Endless Hallway: * The Corridor of Doors: * The Séance Chamber: * The Great Hall: * The Attic: The Mansion's Attic is the home of the ghost of the Victorian gold digging serial killer, Constance Hatchaway aka the Black Widow Bride who married and subsequently murdered five wealthy men for their inheritance. The attic is filled with souvenirs and mementos from her life of crime including a piano being played by a Shadow Pianist. * The Attic Balcony: An old derelicte balcony with a broken railing that is where the Hatbox Ghost is found, standing alongside a collection of five Hatboxes. Background The Haunted Mansion was a white antebellum mansion of early 19th/late 18th century architecture built on Esplanade Street within the French Quarters of New Orleans, Louisiana. While unconfirmed and typically seen as non-cannon, it is sometimes said by Disney sources and cast-members that the mansion was built by a ruthless and ill-fated sea-captain. It is known that the mansion was once owned by a family which seemed to suffer great tragedies and who all wound up dying from sudden and unnatural causes, being buried within the estate's berm plot. At some unspecified point in time likely within either the 19th Century or early 20th century, a transatlantic man (who was possibly the manor's owner or a head-of-staff) commit suicide within the Mansion's cupola by hanging himself to death and went on to become the estate's "Ghost Host". At another unknown point there was a clairvoyant Romani woman known as Madame Leota who worked out of a Caravan where she sold her supernatural services. Leota had some affiliation with the Mansion and upon death became it's undead medium. By 1879, the mansion was owned by a wealthy man named George Hightower. George was engaged to a beautiful and charming woman named Constance Hatchaway but little to George's knowledge, she was secretly a gold-digging serial-killer intent on murdering George after their marriage to inherit his wealth; a scheme which she had already enacted on four different occasions. Constance succeeded in the scheme and used the manor's attic to hide the evidence and twisted "souvenirs" of her criminal-career, going on to live a long and happy life which only ended in her old age. Becoming known as "The Haunted Mansion", the estate served as a kind of retirement home for ghosts and spirits from creepy old crypts all over the world who acquired "Post Lifetime Leases" from the mansion's Ghost Relations Department. The Mansion was seemingly run by the Ghost Host and the Ghostess so by the anachronistic time in which the attraction takes place, the manor has 999 happy haunts occupying it. Although, there is always room for a thousand if any mortal guests care to volunteer. Trivia *The mansion was modeled after the (now-defunct) Shipley-Lydecker House in Baltimore, Maryland. *Outside of the mansion is a sundial which reads "Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be", it is also decorated with the design of a winged hourglass. *One of the porches has empty glasses and a lemonade pitcher set on a wicker table set. *There used to be a spyglass and a barometer found on one of the second floor balconies but they were removed in 2001. These set-pieces alluded towards a deleted draft from the Haunted Mansion known as Gore Manor in-which the house was originally built and owned by a pirate called "Captain Gore". *There also used to be an empty birdcage hanging on the exterior of the house hanging from the southern porch. This referenced the Raven found within the ride who would go on to get it's own bird-house. *Both the mansions the comics, and in the 2003 film are visually inspired by the Antabellum Mansion and are set in New Orleans. Oddly enough both the Haunted Mansion from the comics and the Haunted Mansion from the film are referred to officially as "Gracey Manor" while the only version of the attraction canonically called that is Walt Disney World's Mansion. Category:Mansions Category:Locations